Comedy Reviews
Aditi Mittal, Soho Theatre On Demand review - cows, mothers and fempowermentWednesday, 22 April 2020
“There are places in India where it's safer to be a cow than a woman” is a seemingly innocuous statement, but for Indian comic Aditi Mittal it was a dangerous one to make in a comedy show. Read more... |
Simon Amstell, Netflix review - wisdom and wisecracksTuesday, 14 April 2020
Who knew in the early days of his career, when Simon Amstell was taking the mick out of celebrities on Popworld and then Never Mind the Buzzcocks, that he would turn into one of the cleverest comics of his generation, with a special talent for making existential angst funny? Read more... |
Rachel Fairburn, Go Faster Stripe review - smart and subtle gagsMonday, 06 April 2020
Rachel Fairburn says she didn't know what to wear for the gig. She's dressed in an all-black ensemble; hotpants, animal-print boots and a feather bolero jacket. “I've come as a mistress at a funeral.” Read more... |
Lazy Susan, Soho Theatre On Demand review - sketch duo's ingeniously plotted showFriday, 03 April 2020
You may have seen Lazy Susan's excellent BBC pilot last year; now a series has been commissioned from Freya Parker and Celeste Dring so we can look forward to more sketches, surreal interludes and tiptop visual gags – as well as returning characters including Northern lasses Megan and Michaela, tottering on their heels to a night out where they “don't want any drama”. Read more... |
Michelle Wolf: Joke Show, Netflix review - edgy and original materialMonday, 30 March 2020
Michelle Wolf, best known to UK audiences as the comic who upset Donald Trump with some smart barbs aimed at his staff at the 2018 White House Correspondents' Dinner, has done some occasional dates this side of the pond (plus a run at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe), so her fans will be grateful for Joke Show... Read more... |
Shappi Khorsandi, Soho Theatre On Demand - enjoyable run-through of her careerMonday, 23 March 2020
Shappi Khorsandi's latest show, Skittish Warrior – Confessions of Club Comic, is an enjoyable look back at the stand-up's 20 years in the comedy business. She starts by taking us back to when she was child refugee; her father, a poet and satirist, offended the clerics in Iran, and was even the target of an assassination gang in London. Read more... |
Steve Martin and Martin Short, SSE Hydro Glasgow review - old friends bring a touch of vaudevilleTuesday, 10 March 2020
Steve Martin and Martin Short first met in 1986 on the set of The Three Amigos (in which they co-starred with Chevy Chase), became fast friends and have since worked on a few projects together. In what was quite a coup for the Glasgow Comedy Festival, the first night of their UK tour was a starry curtain-raiser to the festival proper, which starts on Thursday. Read more... |
Tom Rosenthal, The Hawth, Crawley review - circumcision made funnyMonday, 09 March 2020
There's nothing you can't joke about, say all stand-up comics, but Tom Rosenthal has entered new territory with Manhood – a riveting and often raucously funny show about his circumcision. He is here, he says, “to avenge the theft of my foreskin”. Read more... |
John Shuttleworth, Leicester Square Theatre review - reflections on life in the slow laneFriday, 06 March 2020
John Shuttleworth walks gingerly on stage and stands with his back to the audience. As he points out, the tour – his first in three years – is called John Shuttleworth's Back, and he's contractually obliged to show the audience his reverse side. Read more... |
Lucy Porter, Quarterhouse, Folkestone review - confessions of an ex-BrownieMonday, 02 March 2020
Scouting and Girlguiding may seem awfully old-fashioned to some, yet many youngsters are still keen to join the Scout movement. Be Prepared (the Scout motto) was inspired by Lucy Porter's two children joining the Beavers, its youngest iteration. Read more... |
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Album: Floating Points - Cascade
I made a terrible mistake when I first got this LP: I played it on my laptop speakers. That’s not the straight up foolishness you might think,...